


Empty Air

by sorenne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorenne/pseuds/sorenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An angel cannot let go of his heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Air

He agonizes for months on end, trying to convince himself that Dean needs him to stay. He watches his favorite Winchester going from hunt to hunt, motel to motel, thinking all the while that Dean would be lost without him.

It helps to think that.

It makes him feel whole.

It makes him feel less like his grace was ripped in a thousand places, torn to shreds, and scattered through empty air.

It makes him feel less useless, hopeless, and alone.

It makes him believe in something he no longer dares to call home.

He watches Dean’s slumped shoulders and hardened eyes. He watches the way his knuckles turn white when he grips the steering wheel. He watches Sam and Dean part ways. He watches his hunter left completely alone.

And it hurts.

It hurts to see Dean suffer. But there is a small, pathetic amount of satisfaction in knowing that Dean needs him

The feeling is familiar.

Castiel clings to it.

He knows it’s a sad excuse for a non-life, but he doesn’t care. He’s as close to Dean as he can be, and that’s all that matters.

********

It is just another one of those days. A day of watching his hunter in his natural element - namely, a sketchy town with a 24-hour bar and a conveniently placed motel.

Sam is back with Dean again, and the two brothers are talking, comparing notes over some hunt or other. And Dean does something he hasn’t done in a while - he smiles.

It is then that the angel reaches his epiphany.

As far as epiphanies go, it isn’t very dramatic. Nothing to shout from the rooftops about. Not even enough to make an announcement over the grocery store PA system.

This is that quiet sort of personal realization: the sort that leaves you just slightly short of breath, wondering where your last heartbeat had disappeared to.

It is as if a dusty, old curtain had finally been pulled away and Casitle can see, for the first time since the end of his existence, that Dean is still living. Dean is still breathing and eating and talking to his brother. Dean is still solving cases and hunting demons and helping people. A Winchester never just rolls over and dies, especially not over a death of a rogue angel.

Cas knows that now. He knows that Dean hasn’t given up; knows that every day, the hunter must think about him less and less. He hardly ever mentions him anymore.

Dean no longer drinks out of grief. He drinks because he likes beer - like he did in the old days when Cas was there to throw him reproving looks from across the room.

Dean has a beer in his hand now, but he’s not drinking it. He’s grinning at something his brother had said.

He’s close enough to touch. And Cas reaches, his finger-tips tingling, his whole body aching with the need for that contact. He knows he can’t really touch the other man. What was once an angel is no longer alive. Castiel is just a wisp in the air now - a tattered ribbon of grace that’s hanging on to the mortal world.

Cas knows that Dean can’t sense him, but sometimes, Cas is almost sure that he is affecting Dean on some tiny level. Dean will turn around sometimes when there is nobody there but Castiel. He’ll squint and scan the room as if he’s looking for someone. And in the middle of the night, as he watches his hunter sleep, Cas is certain that Dean is aware of him on some basic level.

It used to make him happy. He used to think that he was a comforting, albeit transparent, presence in Dean’s life. Now, he knows.

He knows that he is but a reminder of loss.

He is grief personified.

He is bringing pain to the one person he loves.

He watches Dean take a sip from the bottle, and the realization grips Cas and twists him and he feels like his grace is breaking apart all over again.

********

Leaving is considerably easier than Castiel thought it would be.

Now that he knows that he can be nothing but a hindrance to Dean, he can turn away knowing that Dean would be better off.

That’s a lie.

He’d known that his ghostly presence wasn’t helping Dean from the moment he’d recovered from his encounter with the Leviathan and realized that he was no longer alive.

He knows he should have never lingered. He should have allowed himself to be swept away with the rest of his grace. He should not have been selfish.

But he had persisted in deluding himself. Why?

Because Castiel had lived for God.

Castiel had lived for his brothers.

Castiel had lived for Dean.

And after Castiel died, he had wanted to live for himself.

He takes a last look at Dean who is sitting behind the wheel of the Impala, humming some nonsensical song just to piss off Sam.

Cas knows that Dean is alright and leaving is easy.

********

Dean’s breath catches on a note - the dissonance echoing strangely in his cheerful hum. The hunter frowns, readjusts his grip on the wheel, and drives on.

FIN

 


End file.
